Review: 2018 Venice Biennale

Freespace contains exceptional, thought-provoking work. But a few people’s ‘Will this do?’ approach is more trade show than architecture festival

This year’s curators for the Venice Biennale of Architecture, the Irish duo Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of Grafton Architects, are presenting Freespace. They set out a manifesto, broad in its scope, which places architecture as an all-encompassing gift giver, generous, a harnesser of nature and framer of space, which belongs to us all. And then they asked 100 or so architects, practices and designers around the world to respond to this laudable proposition. It’s an expansive undertaking.